Great video by Practice & Space about the legendary Jay Ryan!
The Bird Machine, inc., is a screen print poster workshop, owned and run by Jay Ryan, which is located very close to Chicago.

Jay has been making hand drawn screen printed posters for bands, and the clubs they play at since 1995. Jay is joined at the Bird Machine shop by Michael Lauritano and Jack Ryan. Many thanks to Jay and everyone at the Bird Machine for letting me invade their space.

The mighty Caspian’s 2nd pressing of Tertia is now up for sale. It features a full color 20pt gatefold jacket with gold foil stamping and two new colors of vinyl. 300 on gold vinyl and 200 on white vinyl. The records were split between the label, the band, and the distributor, so we all have very limited quantities on each color. Also, all preorders will ship with an 11×17 poster.

Still haven’t heard this record? You can stream the whole thing for free here.

Pick up the record with a few different options here. According to the label the white option is just about sold out!

This video is so amazing and fits the song perfectly!
Here’s a little bit of what Malcolm had to say about the video.
The video centers around a single female figure (nameless) who is meandering through the detoriated states of self and surroundings. The context can be framed as a dream within a dream of a young woman under possesive trance.
Visions of multiple selves endlessly roaming around you, animals, and non linear timelines are a theme throughout.
I shot this over few days which involved sneaking onto an abandoned and oddly enchanting 1950’s farmhouse south of Austin, TX. Preparing the site involved using the pre existing material created from the houses decay, e.g. meticulously arranging glass on the floor, making wire nets out of dozens of hangers, dragging old christmas trees upstairs, collecting animal bones from the barn, and in the meantime not getting caught trespassing and looking like lunatics ourselves. The houses oddly arranged disarray was meant to capture something as subtle and unnatural as a person who is slipping into mental illness. During the apex of the song we once again pan into the woman’s mind and see what perhaps are memories of family, the farm, and another life displayed as turbulent and undulating vibrations.
The atmosphere of the house and the pale and diffused December light in Texas really did create an inspiring atmosphere for making ghostly videos.

The effects going into the video are completely unique in that they incorporate a hybrid of digital editing techniques and analog video synthesis processes most heavily featured during the apex of the song. My goal ultimately was to abstract the format of which it was made; I kept imagining finding a fossilized alien video format and the effects you might see when you watched it.

The Coathangers always fun fun and cooky album art. This time they are releasing a limited edition single (500 black, 250 gold) will be available worldwide on April 17 via Suicide Squeeze. The single features “Smother” as the A-side and Davila 666’s “No Crees Que Ya Cansa” as the AA-side, along with artwork from Westin Glass of the Thermals.

The Coathangers have also scheduled a month long tour, which begins March 12 in New Orleans, LA at Siberia, and currently wraps up on April 7 in Nashville, TN at The End, and includes appearances at SXSW. For the March 21-April 7 dates, the band will co-headline with White Mystery. Full tour dates below.

This is a great Kickstarter Campaign for CASSETTE: A Documentary Film about the Cassette Tape by Zack Taylor and Seth Smoot, that has since finished and met its goal. Check out the link to the page here and watch this great video above! I love seeing the behinds the scenes videos of the tape makers and it’s great to see they are people who love what they do! I’m not sure if tapes can have a big of a come back as vinyl but I think they will always be around.

Here’s a pretty interesting video of Nas talking about his history with mix tapes.

About

Make + Appreciate is a blog devoted to the art side of the music industry. Posters, t-shirts, record packaging and everything else in between, we care about the things that were made with love. We will try to feature all different kinds of music and art on this site. We encourage feedback and links to your favorite packaging ideas to help spread the word. Please support artists by buying their work!